Time for bold reforms, Mr Modi

The Planning Commission is being revamped. This should have happened at least 16 years ago when the first NDA government came into office in 1998. By that time the 1991 reforms were beginning to transform the nature of the Indian economy from being closed and centrally planned to an open and private sector-led economy. But better late than never.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced this bold reform in his maiden Independence Day speech. He is now actively following up on this announcement and met selected experts yesterday. I hope the new institution will be a high-powered and knowledge-driven body that will win the respect of its peers by the value addition it brings to addressing India’s myriad challenges.

Modi also used his Red Fort address to hold up a rather unflattering mirror to us Indians instead of trotting out a laundry list of new schemes. This was widely appreciated. He dwelt on aspects such as how we Indians don’t respect our women; lack basic civic sense and keep our cities and villages filthy; focus unremittingly on our narrowest self-interest; do not seem to mind that a majority of our population still practises open defecation.

He did not promise that the government will solve all these social ills. Instead he exhorted the people to come forward and remove them. These weaknesses have been universally known in India. So why did it take a Modi to publicly articulate them and make these severe self-indictments under global gaze?

Why were earlier prime ministers, including the deified Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi with his modernising zeal, unable to hold up this mirror to Indian society? Perhaps they did not want to sully Independence Day celebrations with such lowly details.

Perhaps they did not want to be perceived as an Indian Lee Kuan Yew who would demand discipline from the common man. They would rather remain popular by selling dreams and papering over society’s warts. But let me put forward another perspective.

There are three possible reasons which explain why Modi, in contrast to his predecessors, was able to publicly articulate these social defects and exhort people to overcome them. First, in complete contrast to leaders belonging to the city based or feudal elite, Modi perceives these defects as part of his own social milieu and is impatient to eliminate them.

Elite leaders have been happy to let the hoi polloi wallow in their dirt and narrow-mindedness. The elite could always retire to their westernised and luxurious confines where the smells and congestions of the unorganised sector cannot permeate.

There are others who originated from non-elite segments, but once having landed in Lut-yens’ Delhi quickly took to aping the elite, adapting their lifestyles and mobilising finances — mostly through unfair means — to pitchfork themselves into elite ranks. In both cases, there is zero incentive for these genuine or pseudo elite leaders to even discuss these social defects.

Second, Modi has so far been known to not pander to rank popu-lism. Armed with the knowledge from his Gujarat experience that people are willing to pay good money when assured of good quality public service, Modi has the confidence to demand peoples’ participation in India’s economic and social advancement.

This confidence has characterised leaders like Lee Kuan Yew and Deng Xiaoping, who changed their nation’s development trajectory by first earning the confidence of the people and then leading them on to a difficult path that required discipline and some sacrifices. Modi could do the same.

Third, Modi, being the first Indian prime minister to be born after Independence, is burdened neither by colonial hangovers nor by the accompanying inferiority complex. The Indian elite makes persistent efforts to win brownie points from foreigners, especially from the Anglo-Saxon world.

Our academics prefer to publish in their journals; our industrialists make donations to their universities and think tanks while bemoaning the poor quality of domestic institutions; and our political leaders and bureaucrats constantly try and impress them by either kowtowing to them or coming at them on the rebound, grandstanding at global forums on every possible occasion.

It seems Modi would rather win his accolades domestically and this gives him the courage to talk of issues that are critical to India’s progress, without being concerned about the impression he makes abroad. Modi holds out the hope of making India’s economic development and progress a social movement and bridging the gulf between ‘rulers’ and ‘ruled’.

He can lead the people away from their pathetic dependence on mai-baap sarkar and demand from them the commitment and discipline required to take India forward. He will do well to constantly remind himself of the necessity to strengthen the democratic institutions that have been nurtured over the last 67 years.

Modi will find that the most effective means to nurture our democracy and not descend into elected authoritarianism will be to win the battle of ideas and create a new public discourse that focusses on national interests unflinchingly.